An often-fascinating thing with huge sports moments is when there’s footage of the broadcasters during those moments. That sometimes happens for traditional broadcasts, but it particularly happens for alternate broadcasts. And the Fox digital Women’s World Cup Now show on Twitter gave a great example of that early Sunday morning, with notable reactions to Sweden’s sixth and crucial penalty in their victory over the U.S. in a Round of 16 match.
That penalty initially looked like it was saved by USWNT goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher, who had shone throughout that match (and had stopped one earlier penalty and scored on a penalty herself). But after video review, it was ruled to have crossed the line. And the absolute swing in emotions from Women’s World Cup Now commentators Jimmy Conrad, Leslie Osborne, Melissa Ortiz, and Karina LeBlanc was remarkable. That can be seen starting around 17:20 in the clip below (which you may need to click through to Twitter to view):
Proud of our USWNT 🇺🇸@JimmyConrad, @LeslieOsborne12, @MelissaMOrtiz, and @KarinaLeblanc discuss the heart-breaker on #WWCNowhttps://t.co/scTrDJuz3r
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) August 6, 2023
There’s a whole lot of cross-talk in there, and some f-bombs and s-bombs. Our attempt to transcribe some of it:
“And Alyssa saves it! She saves it! She made a double save, she made one save, then she made the other one.” “Did it cross the line?” “****, it did not go.” “That did not cross the line.” “Oh, ****.”
“That absolutely did not cross the line. You cannot end it on that! No chance that crossed the line.” “It has to cross the line all the way.” “That did not cross the line all the way. What a save by Alyssa Naeher though!” So much drama. So much drama.”
“Wait, wait, she’s looking.” “No!” “Wait, wait, we don’t know what’s happening.” “No!” “No!” “Wait, what?!” “Oh my god!” “It went in?!” “Oh my god!” “Oh!”
“I can’t believe it. Alyssa Naeher made an unbelievable save, and the ball still rolled up over her hand and went in, even though it looked like she made the save. We’ve got to see a replay to know for sure.”
“Sweden are the winners. This is only their second time beating the U.S. women in World Cup competition. And they need to be hugging their goalkeeper more than anyone else, [Zećira] Mušović, who made so many world-class saves throughout this 90 minutes, 120 minutes, even led them into penalties.”
“Heartbreaking moment here for the U.S. women’s national team, who had a couple chances to win this themselves. Alyssa Naeher, incredible.”
“I still want to see a replay of this to see where it crossed the line, I have a lot of questions, but they’re not showing it at the moment. It’s a coin flip, it’s always hard when it goes to penalties.”
“I thought the U.S. played as courageously and brave as they had all tournament long, and I think that was very inspiring. That’s what we wanted to see, and they delivered, they performed.”
“Yep, and you feel for every single player right now. You saw them hugging. This is not how they wanted to go out.”
“As long as the ball is still moving and not dead, it has a chance to cross the line. And they’re saying that her second save didn’t actually save it from crossing the line. So once we get another look, here we go. Oh my. That is unbelievable. A game of inches.”
Here are some selected screengrabs of the commentators’ faces during that sequence of events, in chronological order:
Now that is a “the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat” right out of the old Wide World of Sports opener. But this also showed off some of where alternate broadcasts can excel. The emotions here were more raw than what you’d expect on an official match broadcast, and the roller-coaster that played out on the set here likely was similar to the one for many viewers watching at home.
And the commentators did a good job of explaining what was going on as quickly as possible, difficult without having access to that replay for a while. This really was the oft-promised alternate broadcast experience of watching along with notable commentators. And it was an interesting one.
[Fox Soccer on Twitter]
